Default Theme

Login to your dashboard “http://blogname.wordpress.com/wp-admin&#8221; (in my example, blogname = awm473) to check out the theme being used. Under the Appearance menu item in the Themes sub-menu item, you will be shown that the theme being used for the web site is “Caroline”. There are many other theme options which are available to you, which can be checked out by clicking on the A-Z button. There are over one hundred of them to choose from.

One of the things you will notice about the theme “Caroline” is that there are wide white spaces on the left and right sides of the screen. This space would be even bigger if you use a screen resolution over 1024×768. The new default WordPress theme being used is “Twentyten”. Using this theme will reduce the amount of white space on the web page so I suggest that you use this theme initially. In your dashboard, find the menu item “Appearance” which will show you the “Themes” screen, then type in”twentyten” in the search box. After clicking on Search, you will be shown the screen shot of Twentyten, click on “Activate” and then click on “View Site”. The look of the web page has changed completely and displays a totally different layout.

The new image on the screen is uploaded to the site and implemented by going to the dashboard menu item Appearance and then click on Header. Using the upload area, you may upload your image to be used at the top of the web page, note the restriction on size of the image.

Adding Pages

Login to your dashboard “http://blogname.wordpress.com/wp-admin&#8221; (in my example, blogname = awm473) and we will now add Pages to the site for specific content e.g. Leagues, for league information, Schedules, for league schedule information, Membership, for membership and fees information, and Contact, for information on how your club can be contacted either by phone, mail, or email.

Toggle the welcome screen off by clicking on the “Are you new here?” button, and then click on the Pages menu button. The Pages menu item expands to Pages + Add New and also shows that there is already a Page called About on the site. Hover on About and click on Edit and you will see the content already set up for the About page. You may change this to waht you want but remember to click on Update to save your changes.

Click on “Add New” and add “Leagues” as the page title and any content you wish to add to the page e.g. “leagues information page” and click on Publish.

Once you see the “page published” message at the top of the apge under “Edit Page”, click on “View page” to see what the new page looks like.

Note that the menu list under the main header image has added an entry for Leagues, when you click on that link, you will be switched to that page. Using the same procedure, add new Pages for Schedules, Membership and Contact.

Once you have added pages for Schedules, Membership and Contact, click on “View page” to see the results of these changes. Note that the new entries added are listed in alphabetical order.

Changing the Sidebar

The sidebar, also known as the menu, is a narrow vertical column often jam-packed with lots of information about a website. Found on most WordPress sites, the sidebar is usually placed on the right or left-hand side of the web page, though in some cases, a site will feature two sidebars, one on each side of the main content where your posts are found.

Login to your dashboard, click on Appearance, then on Widgets. To add some text to your sidebar, drag the Text button to the Primary Widget Area (on top right corner of screen) and drop the Text box into the dashed box that will appear under the Primary Wideget Area title. Add a title such as “Upcoming Events”, and add content lines such as “June 15 AGM”, hit enter, “Oct. 7 registration (7-9 pm)” and “Oct. 10 curling begins”, click on “Automatically add paragraphs” and click on “Save”. This will create a simple content sidebar, the other information shown before will no longer show, it is a matter of one or the other. This depends on the code set up in the theme for the sidebar.

The following image shows the results of changing the sidebar on the web page. Other things may be added as needed by using some of the widgets available.

Take a look at awm473.wordpress.com for the final result. Much can be added and changed to reflect what you want to show on your club site. If you have any feedback, questions or comments, please contact me through the links at the bottom of the screen.